Re: [office] Please put this discussion

["Florian Reuter" <freuter@novell.com>]

Hi Bruce,

> define the function and semantics of fields, 

I guess here is the misunderstanding. Field-marks --- as well as bookmarks --- do not have a semantic like e.g. RDF with the underlying triple model etc. They just provide scripts a way to mark parts of the document. As bookmarks provide a way for users to mark parts of the document.
And here is --- I guess --- a main difference between field-marks and meta-data fields. Meta-data field have a semantic defined by the underlying RDF-based framework. Field-marks as well as bookmarks don't.

> OK, fine, but I'm just asking you to explain the "clear difference" you note above.

As I tried to explain. My view of the "clear difference" is that when you use metadata-fields then you use the power of an RDF-based framework and thus imposing a special semantic. When using field-marks you do not have a formal model behind. 

> If it's clear, then surely you can say more about than that it's a compatibility mechanism for OOXML?

Since OOXML fields are just bookmarks for scripts [in difference as bookmarks for users] they don't have an underlying framework or meaning. 

I guess the question is then can we map OOXML fields to our RDF-model and the answer is yes. RDF is pretty powerfull and I really believe you can express every OOXML field and script-controlled bookmark in the RDF framework. [Despite the fact of not properly nested bookmarks and OOXML fields spanning paragraphs.. ;-].
*BUT* the transformation can't be done automatically in a converter or import filter. Designing RDF triples and RDF schemeta is a complex process and when you do it wrong you can't really gain the full power of RDF. So my "yes" to "mapping from  OOXML fields and OOXML/ODF script controlled bookmark" can be done under the condition that a qualified human does it in a manual process.

As a similar example: XML and RDF. My guess would be that you can transform every information encoded in XML documents to RDF. However I'm not aware that this process can be done automatically nor that anybody is trying this. It requires an understanding of the data and involves some tough thinking and good design, right?
When you just replace XML with field-marks I hope you better understand my point.

Field-marks are designed to provide a way to preserve the information in an automatically convertion process between OOXML and ODF without mixing up user-bookmark and non-user-bookmarks. Meta-fields are designed to give parts of the documents a semantic/meaning by empowering the RDF-based framework. Mapping field-marks to RDF is a really good idea --- but its not a good idea to try to do it automatically IMHO.

But I understand you concerns. Clearly we want people to use the RDF-based framework and but some thinking into good RDF design. So having a way round is risky;-) However having bad and meaningless RDF tuples generated by an automatic conversion process is not a good idea too.

So how can we leverade the RDF-framework? And here is a very innovative idea;-) Why not remove the text:field-mark from the proposal and only allow text:fied-mark-start and text:-field-mark-end. This would make dealing with field-marks harder for XML-processing apps and thus developers might softly be forces to take a look at the text:meta-field?? [Really don't know whether this is a good idea --- so please consider it as a statement made in a brainstorming session].

~Florian



~Florian


>>> "Bruce D'Arcus" <bdarcus@gmail.com> 05/05/08 8:46 PM >>>
On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 2:29 PM, Florian Reuter <freuter@novell.com> wrote:

>  > OK, but "mark parts" to do what with them? To control data entry?
>  Depends. I've seen scripts doing at lot of things with the marked data ;-) Not really sure what your point is...

There was a thread that we were involved in awhile back in which I was
simply asking us to define the function and semantics of fields, and
I'm just asking that we do that.

>  > I'm just unclear on what the distinction is between this field you are proposing and text:meta-field.
>
>  Hmm --- I see a clear difference between an RDF-based framework for metadata and "special" bookmarks.  I guess when developing apps like Zotero developers will choose the RDF-based metadata framework. On the other hand when migrating OOXML and scripts to ODF they will use field-marks.

OK, fine, but I'm just asking you to explain the "clear difference"
you note above. If it's clear, then surely you can say more about than
that it's a compatibility mechanism for OOXML?

>  > So how would we -- or third-party devs -- know which one to use for which cases?
>  I think that the whole metadata framework speaks for itself and developers will use it when we make it powerfull and easy to use.
>  The main purpose of the field-mark is to get rid of the bookmark/WW-field mess we have out there...

+1, and no argument here.

Bruce